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ROBT. G. INGERSOLL'S 



LAST BRILLIANT EFFORT, 



AS DELIVERED IN HAVERLY S THEATRE, 



Chicago, Sunday March 23/79. 



PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. 



CHICAGO: 

Berg & McCann, Printers, 161 LaSai/le Street. 

1879. 



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["A brilliant, genial gentleman; a man of brains, and a heart as tender as a 
woman's; a man greatly respected and admired by all who know him, greatly de- 
tested by many among those who do not, and who do not agree with him in opinion; 
a man who does his own thinking, and who says what he thinks, and thinks before 
he says it, is about to address you in review of a great historical character. He 
will do this from his own standpoint and in his own way. Had he lived one hun- 
dred years ago, and succeeded in doing this, he would, under the forms of law, 
have been imprisoned, — if, indeed, he were suffered to live, — his children taken 
from him, his property confiscated, his name traduced and his memory vilhned. 
Times have changed. The world of thought and opinion moves as well as the 
world of matter. He may speak to you here to-day, freely and without reserve. 
He may give his honest thought. You have come to hear him and not me. Let 
me introduce him,— Col. Robert G. Ingersoll."] 



-^Wp-fliECTO^E.**- 



Now and then some one asks me why I am endeavoring to interfere with the 
religious faith of others, and why I try to take from the world the consolation 
naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire. And I answer, I want to do what 
little I can to make my country truly free. I want to broaden the intellectual hor- 
izon of our people. I want it so that Ave can differ upon all those questions, and 
yet grasp each other's hands in genuine friendship. I want in the first place to free 
the clergy, I am a great friend of theirs, but they don't seem to have found it out 
generally. I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sitting 
upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that have been 
hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that each one can be an inves- 
tigator, a thinker; and I want to make his congregation grand enough so that they 
will not only allow him to think, but will demand that he shall think, and. give to 
them the honest truth of his thought. As it is now, ministers are employed like 
attorneys — for the plaintiff or the defendant. If a few people know of a young 
man in the neighborhood maybe who has not a good constitution — he may not be 
healthy enough to be wicked — a young man who has shown no decided talent — it 
occurs to them to make him a minister. They contribute and send him to some 
school. If it turns out that that young man has more of the man in him than they 
thought, and he changes his opinion, everyone who contributed will feel himself 
individually swindled— and they will follow that young man to the grave with the 
poisoned shafts of malice and slander. I want it so that every one will be free — 
so that a pulpit will not be a pillory. They have in Massachusetts, at a place called 
Andover, a kind of minister-factory ; and every professor in that factory takes an 
oath once in every five years — that is as long as an oath will last — that not only has 
he not during the last five years, but so help him God, he will not during the next 
five years intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he could easier 
keep. Since the foundation of that institution there has not been one case of per- 
jury. They believe the same creed they first taught when the foundation stone 
was laid, and now when they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from 
Sheffield and Birmingham. And every man who knows where he was educated 
knows his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he reads, 
and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and shrivel, 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 5 

and become solemnly stupid day after day until he meets with death. It is all 
wrong; it is cruel. Those men should be allowed to grow. They should have the 
air of liberty and the sunshine of thought. 

I want to free the schools of our country. I want it so that when a professor 
in a college finds some fact inconsistent with Moses, he will not hide the fact, that 
it will not be the worse for him for having discovered the-faetr - I wish to see an 
eternal divorce and separation between church and schools. The common school 
is the bread of life; but there should be nothing taught in the schools except what 
somebody knows; and anything else should not be maintained by a system of gen- 
eral taxation. I want its professors so that they will tell everything they find; that 
they will be free to investigate in every direction, and will not be trammeled by the 
superstitions of our day. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing, Is there 
any such thing as Methodist mathematics, Presbyterian botany, Catholic astronomy 
or Baptist biology? What has any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact 
or with any science? Nothing but to hinder, delay or embarrass. I want, then, to 
free the schools; and I want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to 
pretend he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or his grandmother a Catholic; 
so that he can go through a campaign, and when he gets through will find none Of 
the dust of hypocrisy on his knees. 

I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to make laws 
for them, they will take one who knows something, who has brain enough to 
prophesy the destiny of the American Kepublic, no matter what his opinions may 
be upon any religious subject. Suppose we are in a storm out at sea, and the 
billows are washing over our ship, and it is necessary that some one should reef 
the topsail, and a man presents himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the 
mast to find out his opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do 
with it? Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, and 
from what little experience I have had of Washington, very little to do with any 
kind of religion whatever. Now I hope, this afternoon, this magnificent and splen- 
did audience will forget that they are Baptists or Methodists, and remember that 
they are men and women . These are the highest titles humanity can bear — man 
and woman; and every title you add belittles them. Man is the highest; woman 
is the highest. Let us remember that we are simply human beings, with interests 
in common. And let us all remember that our views depend largely upon the 
country in which we happen to live. Suppose we were born in Turkey most of us 
would have been Mohammedans; and when we read in the book that when Moham- 
med visited heaven he became acquainted with an angel named Gabriel, who was 
so broad between his eyes that it would take a smart camel three hundred days to 
make the journey, we probably would have believed it. If we did not, people would 
say: "That young man is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the fabric of our 
religion. What do you propose to give us instead of that angel? We cannot 
afford to trade off an angel of that size for nothing." Or if we had been born in 
India, we would have believed in a god with three heads. Now we believe in three 
gods with one head. And so we might make a tour of the world and see that every 
superstition that could be imagined by the brain of man has been in some place 
held to be sacred. 

Now someone says, "The religion of my father and mother is good enough 
for me." Suppose we all said that, where would be the progress of the world ? 
We would have the rudest and most barbaric religion, which no one could believe. 
I do not believe that it is showing real respect to our parents to believe something 



6 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

simply because they did. Every good father and every good mother wish their 
children to find out more than they knew ; every good father wants his son to over- 
come some obstacle that he could not grapple with ; and if you wish to reflect 
credit on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they did, be- 
cause you live in a better time. Every nation has had what you call a sacred 
record, and the older the more sacred, the more contradictory and the more in- 
spired is the record. We, of course, are not an exception, and I propose to talk 
a little about what is called the Pentateuch, a book, or a collection of books, said to 
have been written by Moses. And right here in the commencement let me say 
that Moses never wrote one word of the Pentateuch — not one word was written 
until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. But as the general 
opinion is that Moses wrote these books, I have entitled this lecture ' ' The Mistakes 
of Moses." For the sake of this lecture, we will admit that he wrote it. Nearly 
every maker of religion has commenced by making the world ; and it is one of 
the safest things to do, because no one can contradict as having been present, and 
it gives free scope to the imagination. These books, in times when there was a 
vast difference between the educated and the ignorant, became inspired and peo- 
ple bowed down and worshipped them. 

I saw a little while ago a Bible with immense oaken covers, with hasps and 
clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and I can imagine how that book 
would be regarded by barbarians in Europe when not more than one person in a 
dozen could read and write. In imagination I saw it carried into the cathedral, 
heard the chant of the priest, saw the swinging of the censer and the smoke rising ; 
and when that Bible was put on the altar I can imagine the barbarians looking at it 
and wondering what influence that black book could have on their lives and 
future. I do not wonder that they imagined it was inspired. None of them could 
write a book, and consequently when they saw it they adored it; they were stricken 
with awe ; and rascals took advantage of that awe. 

Now they say that the book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or not; 
the question is, Is it true? If it is true it don't need to be inspired. Nothing needs 
inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. A fact never went into partnership 
with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other 
fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie 
will not fit anything except another lie made for the express purpose ; and, finally, 
some one gets tired of lying, and the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then 
there is a chance for inspiration. Bight then and there a miracle is needed. The 
real question is: In the light of science, in the light of the brain and heart of the 
nineteenth century, is this book true ? The gentleman who wrote it begins by tell- 
ing us that God made the universe out of nothing. That I cannot conceive ; it may 
be so, but I cannot conceive it. Nothing, regarded in the light of raw material, is, 
to my mind, a decided and disastrous failure. I cannot imagine of nothing being- 
made into something, any more than I can of something being changed back into 
nothing. I cannot conceive of force aside from matter, because force to be orce 
must be active, and unless there is matter there is nothing for force to act upon, 
and consequently it cannot be active. So I simply say I cannot comprehend it. I 
cannot believe it. I may roast for this, but it is my honest opinion. The next 
thing he proceeds to tell us is that God divided the darkness from the light; and 
right here let me say when I speak about God I simply mean the being described 
by the Jews. There may be in immensity some being beneath whose wing the 
universe exists, whose every thought is a glittering star, but I know nothing about 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 7 

Him, — not the slightest, — and this afternoon I am simply talking about the being 
described by the Jewish people. When I say God, I mean Him. Moses describes 
God dividing the light from the darkness. I suppose that at that time they must 
have been mixed. You can readily see how light and darkness can get mixed. 
They must have been entities. The reason I think so is because in that same book 
I find that darkness overspread Egypt so thick that it could be felt, and they used 
to have on exhibition in Ronie a bottle of the darkness that once overspread Egypt. 
The gentleman who wrote this in imagination saw God dividing light from the dark- 
ness. I am sure the man who wrote it, believed darkness to be an entity, a some- 
thing, a tangible thing that can be mixed with light. 

The next thing that he informs us is that God divided the waters above the 
firmament from those below the firmament. The man who wrote that believed the 
firmament to be a solid affair. And that is what the gods did. You recollect the 
gods came down and made love to the daughters of men — and I never blamed 
them for it. I have never read a description of any heaven I would not leave on 
the same errand. That is where the gods lived. That is where they kept the 
water. It was solid. That is the reason the people prayed for rain. They 
believed that an angel could take a lever, raise a window and let out the desired 
quantity. I find in the Psalms that "He bowed the heavens and came down;" and 
we read that the children of men built a tower to reach the heavens and climb into 
the abode of the gods. The man who wrote that believed the firmament to be 
solid. He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the 
sun wooed with amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and that, disappointed, their 
vaporous sighs changed to tears and fell again as rain. The next thing he tells us 
is that the grass began to grow, and the branches of the trees laughed into blos- 
som, and the grass ran up the shoulder of the hills, and yet not a solitary ray of light 
had left the eternal quiver of the sun. Not a blade of grass had ever been touched 
by a gleam of light. And I do not think that grass will grow to hurt without a 
gleam of sunshine. I think the man who wrote that simply made a mistake, and 
is excusable to a certain degree. The next day he made the sun and moon — the 
sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. Do you think the man who 
wrote that knew anything about the size of the sun? I think he thought it was 
about three feet in diameter, because I find in some book that the sun was stopped 
a whole day, to give a general named Joshua time to kill a few more Amalekites; 
and the moon was stopped also. Now, it seems to me that the sun would give 
fight enough without stopping the moon; but as they were in the stopping business 
they did it just for devilment. At another time, we read, the sun was turned ten 
degrees backward to convince Hezekiah that he was not going to die of a boil. 
How much easier it would have been to cure the boil! The man who wrote that 
thought the sun was two or three feet in diameter, and could be stopped and 
pulled around like the sun and moon in a theatre. Do you know that the sun 
throws out every second of time as much heat as could be generated by burning 
eleven thousand millions tons of coal. I don't believe he knew that, or that he 
knew the motion of the earth. I don't believe he knew that it was turning on its 
axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, because if he did, he would have 
understood the immensity of heat that would have been generated by stopping the 
world. It has been calculated by one of the best mathematicians and astronomers 
that to stop the world would cause as much heat as it would take to burn a lump 
of solid coal three times as big as the globe. And yet we find in that book that 
the sun was not only stopped, but turned back ten degrees, simply to convince a 



8 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

gentleman that he was not going to die of a boil! They may say I will be damned 
if I do not believe that, and I tell them I will if I do. 

Then he gives us the history of astronomy, and he gives it to us in five 
words : "He made the stars also." He came very near forgetting the stars. Do 
you believe that the man who wrote that knew that there are stars as much larger 
than this earth as this earth is larger than the apple which Adam and Eve are said 
to have eaten ? Do you believe that he knew that this world is but a speck in the 
shining, glittering universe of existence ? I would gather from that that he made 
the stars after he got the world done. The telescope, in reading the infinite leaves 
of the heavens, has ascertained that light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles per 
second, and it would require millions of years to come from some of the stars to 
this earth. Yet the beams of those stars mingle in our atmosphere, so that if 
those distant orbs were fashioned when this world began, we must have been whirling 
in space not six thousand, but many millions of years. Do you believe the man who 
wrote that as a history of astronomy really knew that this world was but a speck 
compared with millions of sparkling orbs ? I do not. He then proceeds to tell us 
that God made fish and cattle, and that man and woman were created male and 
female. The first account stops at the second verse of the second chapter. You 
see, the Bible originally was not divided into chapters ; the first Bible that was 
ever divided into chapters in our language was made in the year of grace 1550. 
The Bible was originally written in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew lan- 
guage at that time had no vowels in writing. It was written entirely with con- 
sonants, and without being divided into chapters or into verses, and there was no 
system of punctuation whatever. After you go home to-night write an English 
sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will 
take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it. When the Bible was 
divided into verses and chapters, the divisions were not always correct, and so the 
division between the first and second chapter of Genesis is not in the right place. 
The second account of the creation commences at the thud verse, and it differs 
from the first in two essential points. In the first account man is the last made ; in 
the second, man is made before the beasts. In the first account, man is made 
"male and female ;" in the second only a man is made, and there is no intention of 
making a woman whatever. 

You will find by reading that second chapter that God tried to palm off on 
Adam a beast as his helpmeet. Everybody talks about the Bible and nobody reads 
it; that is the reason it is so generally believed. I am probably the only man in 
the United States who has read the Bible through this year. I have wasted that 
time, but I had a purpose in view. Just read it, and you will find, about the twenty- 
third verse, that God caused all the animals to walk before Adam in order that 
he might name them. And the animals came like a menagerie into town, and as 
Adam looked at all the crawlers, jumpers and creepers, this God stood by to see 
what he would call them. After this procession passed, it was pathetically re- 
marked, "Yet was there not found any helpmeet for Adam." Adam didn't see any- 
thing that he could fancy. And I am glad he didn't. If he had, there would not 
have been a free-thinker in this world; we should have all died orthodox. And 
finding Adam was so particular, God had to make him a helpmeet, and having used 
up the nothing he was compelled to take part of the man to make the woman with, 
and he took from the man a rib. How did he get it? And then imagine a God with a 
bone in his hand, and about to start a woman, trying to make up his mind whether to 
make a blonde or a brunette. Bight here it is only proper that I should warn you of 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 9 

the consequences of laughing at any story in the holy Bible. When you come to 
die, your laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. As you look back 
upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked and 
ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted — all that 
may be forgiven you; but if you recollect that you* have laughed at God's book you 
will see through the shadows of death, the leering looks of fiends and the forked 
tongues of devils. Let me show you how it will be. For instance, it is the day of 
judgement. When the man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever 
does the cross-examining, he says to his soul: "Where are you from?" "I am 
from the world.'' "Yes, sir. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, I don't like 
to talk about myself. " "Butyouhave to. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, 
I was a good fellow; I loved my wife, I loved my children. My home was my 
heaven; my fireside was my paradise, and to sit there and see the lights and shad- 
ows falling on the faces of those I love, that to me was a perpetual joy. I never 
gave one of them a solitary moment of pain. I don't owe a dollar in the world, 
and I left enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door 
of the house I loved. That is the kind of a man I am." "Did you belong to any 
church?" "I did not. They were too u arrow for me. They were always expecting 
to be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned.'' "Well, didyoube- 
lieve that rib story? What rib story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business? No, 
I did not. To tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swal- 
low." "To hell with him! Next. Where are you from?" "I'm from the world, 
too." "Do you belong to any church?" "Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association." "What is your business?" "Cashier in a bank." "Did you 
ever run off with any of the money?" "I don't like to tell, sir." "Well, but you 
have to." "Yes, sir; I did." "What kind of a bank did you have." "A savings 
bank." "How much did you run off with?" "One hundred thousand dollars." 
"Did you take anything else along with you?" "Yes, sir." "What?" "I took my 
neighbor's wife." "Did you have a wife and children of your own?" "Yes, sir." 
"And you deserted them?" "Oh, yes; but such was my confidence in God that I 
believed He would take care of them." "Have you heard of them since?" "No, 
sir." "Did you believe that rib story?" "Ah, bless your soul, yes! I believed all 
of it, sir; I often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the 
Bible, so that I could show what my faith could do," "You believed it, did you?" 
"Yes, with all my heart." "Give him a harp." 

I simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these stories. Of 
all the authors in the world God hates a critic the worst. Having got this woman 
done he brought her to the man, and they started housekeeping, and a few minutes 
afterward a snake came through a crack in the fence and commenced to talk with 
her on the subject of fruit. She was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she 
did not know whether snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about 
the apples or not. Well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those apples 
and laid it all on his wife; and there is where the mistake was made. God ought 
to have rubbed him out at once. He might have known that no good could come 
of starting the world with a man like that. They were turned out. Then the 
trouble commenced, and people got worse and worse. God, you must recollect, 
was holding the reins of government, but he did nothing for them. He allowed 
them to live six hundred and sixty-nine years without knowing their A. B. C. He 
never started a school, not even a Sunday school. He didn't even keep His own 
boys at home. And the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to 



10 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

drown them. Yet that same god has the impudence to tell me how to raise my 
own children. "What would you think of a neighbor, who had just killed his babes 
giving you his views on domestic economy? God found that he could do nothing with 
them and He said: "I will drown them all, except a few." And He picked out a 
fellow by the name of Noah, that had been a bachelor for five hundred years. If 
I had to drown anybody, I would have drowned him. I believe that Noah had then 
been married something like one hundred years. God told him to build a boat, 
and he built one five hundred feet long, eighty or ninety feet broad and fifty-five 
feet high, with one door shutting on the outside, and one window twenty-two inches 
square. If Noah had any hobby in the world it was ventilation. Then into this 
ark he put a certain number of all the animals in the world. Naturalists have 
ascertained that at that time there were at least eleven hundred thousand insects 
necessary to go into the ark, about forty thousand mammalia, sixteen hundred 
reptilia, to say nothing about the mastodon, the elephant and the animalculse, of 
which thousands live upon a single leaf and which cannot be seen by the naked 
eye. Noah had no microscope, and yet he had to pick them out by pairs. You 
have no idea the trouble that man had. Some say that the flood was not uni- 
versal, that it was partial. Why, then, did God say: "I will destroy every living 
thing beneath the heavens." If it was partial why did Noah save the birds? An 
ordinary bird, tending strictly to business, can beat a partial flood. Why did he 
put the birds in there — the eagles, the vultures, the condors — if it was only a par- 
tial flood? And how did he get them in there? Were they inspired to go there, or 
did he drive them up? Did the polar bear leave his home of ice and start for the 
tropics inquiring for Noah; or could the kangaroo come from Australia unless he 
was inspired, or somebody was behind him? Then there are animals on this 
hemisphere not on that. How did he get them across? And there are some 
animals which would be very unpleasant in an ark unless the ventilation was 
very perfect. 

When he got the animals in the ark, God shut the door and Noah pulled down 
the window. And then it began to rain, and it kept on raining until the water went 
twenty-nine feet over the highest mountain. Chimborazo, then as now, lifted its 
head above the clouds, and then as now, there sat the condor. And yet the waters 
rose and rose over every mountain in the world — twenty-nine feet above the 
highest peaks, covered with snow and ice. How deep were these waters ? About 
five and a half miles. How long did it rain ? Forty days. How much did it have 
to rain a day ? About eight hundred feet. How is that for dampness ? No won- 
der they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I had been there I 
would have said the whole side of the house was out. How long were they in this 
ark ? A year and ten days, floating around with no rudder, no sail, nobody on the 
outside at all. The window was shut, and there was no door, except the one that 
shut on the outside. Who ran this ark — who took care of it ? Finally it came 
down on Mount Ararat, a peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the 
sea, with about three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give 
the animals from the tropics a chance. Then Noah opened the window and got a 
breath of fresh air, and he let out all the animals; and then Noah took a drink, and 
God made a bargain with him that He would not drown us any more, and He put a 
rainbow in the clouds and said: "Yfhen I see that I will recollect that I have 
promised not to drown you." Because if it was not for that He is apt to drown us 
at any moment. Now can anybody believe that that is the origin of the rainbow ? 
Are you not all familiar with the natural_causes which bring those beautiful arches 



MSITAKES OF MOSES. 1 1 

before our eyes? Then the people started out again, and they were as bad as before. 
Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first place? He knew he would 
have to drown Adam and Eve and all his family. Then another thing, why did He want 
to drown the animals? "What had they done? What crime had they committed? It 
is very hard to answer these questions — that is, for a man who has only been born 
once. After a while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, and the gods 
heard about it and said : " Let's go down and see what man is up to." They came 
and found things a great deal worse than they thought, and thereupon they con- 
founded the language to prevent them succeeding, so that the fellow up abo v^e 
could not shout down "mortar " or "brick " to the one below, and they had to give 
it up. Is it possible that anyone believes that that is the reason why we have the 
variety of languages in the world ? Do you know that language is born of human 
experience, and is a physical science ? Do you know that every word has been 
suggested in some way by the feelings or observations of man — that there are words 
as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and others as wild as the beasts ? Do 
you know that language is dying and being born continually — that every language 
has its cemetery and cradle, its bud and blossom, and withered leaf ? Man has 
loved, enjoyed and suffered, and language is simply the expression he gives those 
experiences. 

Then the world began to divide, and th.e Jewish nation was started. Now, I 
want to say that at one time your ancestors, like mine, were barbarians. If the 
Jewish people had to write these books now they would be civilized books, and I 
do not hold them responsible for what their ancestors did. We find the Jewish 
people first in Canaan, and there were seventy of them, counting Joseph and his 
children already in Egypt. They lived two hundred and fifteen years, and 1hey 
then went down into Egypt and stayed there two hundred and fifteen years; they 
were four hundred and thirty years in Canaan and Egypt. How many did they 
have when they went to Egypt? Seventy. How many were they at the end of 
two hundred and fifteen years? Three millions. That is a good many. We had 
at the time of the ^Revolution in this country three millions of people. Since that 
time there have been four doubles, until we have forty -eight millions to-day. How 
many would the Jews number at the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years? 
Call it eight doubles and we have forty thousand. But instead of forty thousand 
they had three miUions. How do I know they had three million ?s Because they 
had six hundred thousand men of war. For every honest voter in the state of Ill- 
inois there will be five' other people, and there are always more voters than men of 
war. They must have had at the lowest possible estimate three millions of people. 
Is that true? Is there a minister in the city of Chicago that will certify to his own 
idiocy by claiming that they could have increased to three millions by that time? 
If there is, let him say so. Do not let him talk about the civilizing influence of a 
lie. 

When they got into the desert they took a census to see how many first born 
children there were. They found they had twenty-two thousand two hundred and 
seventy three first born males. It is reasonable to suppose there was about the 
same number of first born girls, or forty-five thousand first born children. There 
must have been about as many mothers as first-born children. Dividing three 
millions by forty -five thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in Israel 
had to have on the average sixty-eight children apiece. Some stories are too 
thin. This is too thick. Now, we know that among three million people there will 
be about three hundred births a day; and according to the Old Testament, when*? 



12 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

ever a child was born the mother had to make a sacrifice, — a sin-offering for the 
crime of having been a mother. If there is in this universe anything that is infin- 
itely pure, it is a mother with her child in her arms. Every woman had to have a 
sacrifice of a couple of doves, a couple of pigeons, and the priests had to eat those 
pigeons in the most holy place. At that time there were at least three hundred 
births a day, and the priests had to cook and eat those pigeons in the most holy 
place; and at that time there were only three priests. Two hundred birds a piece 
per day! I look upon them as the champion bird-eaters of the world. 

Then where were these Jews? They were upon the desert of Sinai; and Sa- 
hara compared to that is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava, torn by storm and 
vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon, and changed to stone. Such was 
the desert of Sinai. The whole supplies of the world could not maintain three 
millions of people on the desert of Sinai for forty years, It would cost one hun- 
dred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt Christendom. And yet there 
they were with flocks and herds — so many that they sacrificed over one hundred 
and fifty thousand first-born lambs at one time. It would require millions of acres 
to support those flocks, and yet there was no blade of grass, and there is no ac- 
count of it raining baled hay. They sacrificed one hundred and fifty thousand lambs, 
and the blood had all to be sprinkled on the altar within two hours, and there were 
only three priests. They would have to sprinkle the blood of twelve hundred and 
fifty lambs per minute. Then all the people gathered in front of the tabernacle 
eighteen feet deep. Three millions of people would make a column six miles long. 
Some reverend gentlemen say they were ninety feet deep. Well, that would make 
a column of over a mile. 

Where were these people going. They were going to the Holy Land. How 
^arge was it? Twelve thousand square miles — one-fifth the size of Illinois — a fright- 
ful country, covered with rocks and desolation. There never was a land agent in 
the city of Chicago that would not have blushed with shame to have described that 
land as flowing with milk and honey. Do you believe that God Almighty ever went 
into partnership with hornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the 
Jews: "I will send hornets before you, to drive out the Canaanites." How would 
a hornet know a Canaanite? Is it possible that God inspired the hornets — that he 
granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? I am willing to admit that noth- 
ing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native country 
than a few hornets attending strictly to business. God said "Kill the Canaanites 
slowly." Why? "Lest the beasts of the field increase upon you." How many 
Jews were there? Three millions. Going to a conntry, how large? Twelve thou- 
sand square miles. But were there nations already in this Holy Land? Yes, there 
were seven nations "mightier than the Jews." Say there would be twenty-one 
millions when they got there, or twenty-four millions with themselves. Yet they 
were told to kill them slowly, lest the beasts of the field increased upon them. Is 
there a man in Chicago that believes that? Then what does he teach it to little 
children for? Let him tell the truth. 

So the same God went into partnership with snakes. The children of Israel 
lived on manna — one account says all the time, and another only a little while. 
That is the reason there is a chance for commentaries, and you can exercise faith. 
If the book was reasonable everybody could get to heaven, in a moment. But 
whenever it looks as if it could not be that way and you believe, you are almost a 
saint, and when you know it is not that way and believe you are a saint. He fed 
them on manna. Now manna is very peculiar stuff. It would melt in the sun, 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 13 

and yet they used to cook it by seething and baking. I would as soon think of 
frying snow or boiling icicles. But this manna had other peculiar qualities. It 
shrank to an omer, no matter how much they gathered, and swelled up to an 
omer, no matter how little they gathered. What a magnificent thing manna would 
be for the currency, shrinking and swelling according to the volume of business! 
There was not a change in the bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that God 
could just as well give them three square meals a day. They remembered about 
the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks and the onions of Egypt, and they 
said: "Our souls abhorreth this light bread." Then this God got mad — you know 
cooks are always touchy — and thereupon He sent snakes to bite the men, women 
and children. He also sent them quails in wrath and anger, and while they had 
the flesh between their teeth, He struck thousands of them dead. He always 
acted in that way, all of a sudden. People had no chance to explain — no chance 
to move for a new trial — nothing. I want to know if it is reasonable He should 
kill people for asking for one change of diet in forty years. Suppose you had been 
boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a solitary thing on her 
table but hash, and one morning you said: "My soul abhorreth hash." What 
would you say if she let a basketful of rattlesnakes upon you? Now it it possible 
for people to believe this? The Bible says that their clothes did not wax old, they 
did not get shiny at the knees or elbows; and their shoes did not wear out. They 
grew right along with them. The little boy starting out with his first pants grew 
up and his pants grew with him. Some commentators have insisted that angels 
attended to their wardrobes. I never could believe it. Just think of one angel 
hunting another and saying: "There goes another button." I cannot believe it. 
There must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. Do you believe the real 
God, — if there is one — ever killed a man for making hair-oil ? And yet you find in 
the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for making hair-oil to grease Aaron's 
beard ; and said if anybody made the same hair-oil he should be killed. And He 
gave. him a formula for making ointment, and He said if anybody made ointment 
like that he should be killed. I think that is carrying patent laws to excess. 
There must be some mistake about it. I cannot imagine the infinite Creator of all 
the shining worlds giving a recipe foi hair-oil. Do you believe that the real God 
came down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for making a tabernacle — patterns 
for tongs, for snuffers and such things ? Do you believe that God came down on 
that mountain and told Moses how to cut a coat, and how it should be trimmed ? 
What would an infinite God care on which side he cut the breast, what color the 
fringe was, or how the buttons were placed ? Do you believe God told Moses to 
make curtains of fine linen ? Where did they get their flax in the desert ? How 
did they weave it ?. Did He tell him to make things of gold, silver and precious 
stones, when they hadn't them ? Is it possible that God told them not to eat any 
fruit until after the fourth year of planting the trees ? You see all these things 
were written hundreds of years afterwards, and the priests, in order to collect the 
tithes, dated the laws back. They did not say, "This is our law," but, "Thus said 
God to Moses in the wilderness." Now, can you believe that ? Imagine a scene : 
The eternal God tells Moses, "Here is the way I want you to consecrate my 
priests. Catch a sheep and cut his throat." I never could understand why God 
wanted'a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean trick ; perhaps it was 
because his priests were fond of mutton. He telis Moses further to take some of 
the blood a and put it on his right thumb, a little on his right ear, and a little on his 
right big toe. Do youjbelieve God ever gave such instructions for the consecra- 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

tion of His priests. If you should see the South Sea Islanders going through such 
a performance you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it 
had to be done in order to consecrate a man to the service of the infinite God ? 
Supposing the blood got on the left toe ! 

Then we find in this book how God went to work to make the Egyptians let 
the Israelites go. Suppose we wish to make a treaty with the mikado of Japan, 
and Mr. Hayes sent a commissioner there ; and suppose he should employ Her- 
mann, the wonderful German, to go along with him ; and when they came in the 
presence of the mikado Hermann threw down an umbrella, which changed into a 
turtle, and the commissioner said : " That is my certificate." You would say the 
country is disgraced. You would say the president of a republic like this disgraces 
himself with jugglery. Yet we are told God sent Moses and Aaron before Pha- 
raoh, and when they got there Moses threw down a stick, which turned into a 
snake. That God is a juggler — he is the infinite prestidigitator. Is that possible ? 
Was that really a snake, or was it the appearance of a snake ? If it was the 
appearance of a snake, it was a fraud. Then the necromancers of Egypt were 
sent for, and they threw down sticks, which turned into . snakes, but those were 
not so large as Moses' snake, which swallowed them. I maintain that it is just 
as hard to make smaD snakes as it is to make large ones; the only difference is that 
to make large snakes either larger sticks or more practice is required. 

Do you believe that God rained hail on the innocent cattle, killing them in the 
highways and in the field? Why should he inflict punishment on cattle for some- 
thing their owners had done? I could never have any respect for a God that would 
so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply on account of the crime of its owner. Is 
it possible that God worked miracles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong? 
Why did he not tell Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand? 
Why did he not tell him, "Your government is founded on slavery, and it will go 
down, and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of man your temples, 
your altars, and your fanes?" Why did not he speak about the infamy of slavery? 
Because he believed in the infamy of slavery himself. Can we believe that' God 
will aUow a man to give his wife the right of divorcement and make the mother of 
his children a wanderer and a vagrant. There is not one word about woman in the 
Old Testament except the word of shame and humiliation. The God of the Bible 
does not think woman is as good as man. She was never worth mentioning. It 
did not take the pains to recount the death of the mother of us all. I have no res- 
pect for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of man. And if there is 
any God in this universe who thinks more of me than he thinks of my wife, he is 
not well acquainted with both of us. And yet they say that that was done on ac- 
count of the hardness of their hearts; and that was done in a community where 
the law was so fierce that it stoned a man to death for picking up sticks on Sunday • 
Would it not have been better to stone to death every man who abused his wife and al- 
lowed them to pickup sticks on account of the hardness of their hearts? If God wanted 
to take those Jews from Egypt to the land of Canaan, why didn't He do it instant- 
ly? If He was going to do a miracle, why didn't He do one worth talking about? 

After God had killed all the first-born in Egypt, after he had killed all the cat- 
tle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to flight six hundred thousand 
men. And because this God overwhelmed the Egyptian army, he bragged about 
it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the attention of the Jews to the fact that 
he overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts. Did he help much with their six hundred thou- 
s a 1 1 n ?u We find by the records of the day thatthe Egyptian standing army at 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 15 

that time was never more than one hundred thousand men. Must we believe all 
these stories in order to get to heaven when we die? Must you judge of a man's 
character by the number of stories he believes? Are we to get to heaven by creed 
or by deed? That is the question. Shall we reason, or shall we simply believe? Ah, 
but they say the Bible is not inspired about those little things. The Bible says the 
rabbit and the hare chew the cud. But they do not. They have a tremulous 
motion of the Up. But the Being that made them says they chew the cud. The 
Bible therefore, is not inspired in natural history. Is it inspired in its astrology? No. 
Well, what is it inspired in? In its law? Thousands of people say that if it had 
not been for the ten commandments we would not have known any better than to rob 
and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, hoed them all summer and 
dug them in the fall; and suppose a man had sat upon the fence all the time and 
watched him; do you believe it would be necessary for that man to read the ten 
commandments to find out who, in his judgment, had a right to take those pota- 
toes? All laws against larency have been made by industry to protect the fruits of its 
labor. Why is there a law against murder? Simply because a large majority of 
people object to being murdered. That is all. And all these laws were in force 
thousands of years before that time. 

One of the commandments said they should not make any graven images, and 
that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has ever enriched stone with 
the divine forms of beauty in that country; and any commandment that is the 
death of art is not a good commandment. But they say the Bible is morally 
inspired; and they tell me there is no civilization without this Bible. Then God 
knows that just as well as you do. God always knew it, and if you can't civilize 
a nation without a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one bible to start 
with? Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go 
down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally inspired. 
Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this thing, because I am willing to 
stake my salvation or damnation on this question, whether the Bible is true or not. 
I say it is not; and upon that I am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman 
here who believes in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who 
believes in that infamy? You say: "No we do not." Then you are better than 
your God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed in 
it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infamy of infamies. 
It robs our language of every sweet and tender word in it. It takes the fireside 
away forever. It takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, 
brother, and turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes 
of lust and hatred. I was in Utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain 
where God used to talk to Brigham Young. He never said anything to me. I 
said it was just as reasonable that God in the nineteenth century would talk to a 
polygamist in IT tah as it was that four thousand years ago, on Mount Sinai, he 
talked to Moses upon that hellish and damnable question. 

I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no heaven on 
this earth save where the one woman loves the one man and the one man loves the 
one woman. I guess it is not inspired on the polygamy question. Maybe it is 
inspired about religious liberty. God says that if anybody differs with you about 
religion, "kill him." He told His peculiar people, "If any one teaches a different re- 
ligion, kill him !" He did not say try and convince him that he is wrong, bu 
"kill him." He did not say, "I am in the miracle business, and I will convince him; 
but "kiUnini." He said to every husband, "If your wife, that you love as you 



16 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

love your own soul, says, " 'let us go and worship other gods,' then 'thy hand shall be 
first upon her and she shall be stoned with stones until she dies.' " Well now, I hate a 
God of that kind and I cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from Him. 
A God tells a man to kill his wife simply because she differs with him on religion ! 
If the real God were to tell me to kill my wife, I would not do it. If you had lived 
in Palestine at that time, and your wife — the mother of your children— had woke 
up at night and said : "I am tired of Jehovah. He is always turning up that 
board bill. He is always telling about whipping the Egyptians. He is always 
killing somebody. I am tired of Him. Let us worship the sun. The sun has 
clothed the world in beauty ; it has covered the earth with green and flowers ; by 
its divine light I first saw your face ; its light has enabled me to look into the eyes 
of my beautiful babe. Let us worship the sun, father and mother of light and love 
and joy." Then what would it be your duty to do — kill her ? Do you believe any 
real god ever did that ? Your hand should be first upon her, and when you took 
up some ragged rock and hurled it against the white bosom filled with love for you, 
and saw running away the red current of her sweet life, then you would look up 
to heaven and receive the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose command- 
ments you had to obey. I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious liberty. 
Let me ask you right here : Suppose, as a matter of fact, God gave those laws 
to the Jews and told them "whenever a man preaches a different religion, kill 
him," and suppose that afterwards that same God took upon himself flesh and 
came to the world and taught and preached a different religion, and the Jews 
crucified him— did he not reap exactly what he sowed? 

May be this book is inspired about war. God told the Israelites to overrun 
that country, and kill every man, woman, and child for defending their native land 
Kill the old men? Yes. Kill the women? Certainly. And the little dimpled babes 
in the cradle, that smile and coo in the face of murder — dash out their brains; that 
is the will of God. Will you tell me that any god ever commanded such infamy? 
Kill the men and the women, and the young men and the babes ! ' 'What shall we 
do with the maidens?" "Give them to the rabble murderers!" Do you believe 
that God ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that shed their 
perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? 
If there is any God, I pray him to write in the book of eternal remembrance 
opposite to my name, that I denied that lie. Whenever a woman reads a Bible and . 
comes to that passage, she ought to throw the book from her in contempt and 
scorn. Do you tell me that any decent god would do that? What would the 
devil have done under the same circumstances! Just think of it; and yet that is 
the God that we want to get into the constitution. That is the God we teach our 
children about, so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! That 
monster — that fiend ! I guess the bible is not inspired about religious liberty, nor 
about war. 

Then, if it is not inspired about these things, maybe it is inspired about slavery. 
God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the heathen round about and they 
should be servants for them. What is a "servant?" If they struck a "servant" and 
he died immediately, punishment was to follow; but if the injured man should lin- 
ger a while, there was no punishment, because the servant represented their 
money ! Do you believe that it is right — that God made one man to work for 
another and to receive pay in rations? Do you believe God said that a whip on the 
naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? Is it possible that the real 
God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? What more does he say? 



MISTAKES OF MOSES. 17 

When the time of a married slave expired, he could not take his •wife and children 
with him. Then if the slave did not wish to desert his family, he had his ears 
pierced with an awl, and became his master's property for ever. Do you believe 
that God ever turned the dimpled cheeks of tittle children into iron chains to hold 
a man in slavery? Do you know that a God tike that would not make a respectable 
devil! I want none of his mercy. I want no part and no lot in the heaven of such 
a god. I will go to perdition, where there is human sympathy. The only voice 
we have ever had from either of those other worlds came from hell. There was 
a rich man who prayed his brothers to attend to Lazarus so that they might "not 
come to this place." That is the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across 
the river having any sympathy . And I would rather be in hell asking for water 
than in heaven denying that petition. Well, what is this book inspired about? 
Where does the inspiration come from ? Why was it that so many animals were 
killed? It was simply to make atonement for man — that is all. They killed some- 
thing that had not committed a crime, in order that the one who had committed 
the crime might be acquitted. Based upon that idea is the atonement of the 
Christian religion. That is the reason I attack this book — because it is the basis of 
another infamy; viz . , that one man can be good for another, or that one man can 
sin for another. I deny it. You have got to be good for yourself; you have got 
to sin for yourself. The trouble about the atonement is, that it saves the wrong 
man. For instance, I kill some one. He is a good man. He loves his wife and 
children and tries to make them happy; but he is not a Christian, and he goes to 
hell. Just as soon as I am convicted and cannot get a pardon I get religion, and 
I go to heaven. The hand of mercy cannot reach down through the shadows of 
hell to my victim. 

There is no atonement for the saint— only for the sinner and the criminal. The 
atonement saves the wrong man. I have said that I would never make a lecture 
at all without attacking this doctrine. I did not care what I started out on. I was 
always going to attack this doctrine. And in my conclusion I want to draw you a 
few pictures of the Christian heaven. But before I do that I want to say the rest 
I have to say about Moses. I want you to understand that the Bible was never 
printed until 1488. I want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript, 
|n possession of those who could change it if they wished; and they did change it, 
because no two ever agreed. Much of it was in the waste basket of credulity, in 
the open mouth of tradition, and in the dull ear of memory. I want you also to 
know that the Jews themselves never agreed as to what books were inspired, and 
that there were a lot of books written that were not incorporated in the Old Testa- 
ment. I want you to know that two or three years before Christ, the Hebrew 
manuscript was translated into Greek, and that the original from which the trans- 
lation wat, made has never been seen since. Some Latin Bibles were found in # 
Afric a but no two agreed; and then they translated the Septuagint into the languages 
of Europe, and no two agreed. Henry VIII. took a little time between murdering his 
wives to see that the Word of God was translated correctly. You must recollect 
that we are indebted to murderers for our Bibles and our creeds. Constantine, who 
helped on the good work in its early stage, murdered his wife and child, mingling 
their blood with the blood of the Savior. 

The Bible that Henry VIII. got up did not suit and then his daughter the mur- 
deress of Mary, Queen of Scots, got up another edition, which also did not suit; 
and, finally, that philosophical idiot, King James, prepared the edition which we 
now have. There are at least one hundred thousand errors in the Old Testament. 



18 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

but everybody sees that is not enough to invalidiate its claim to infallibility. But 
these errors are gradually being fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs 
instead of "ravens," and Samson's three hundred foxes will be three hundred 
"sheaves" already bound, which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat, 
I want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the time the 
Bible was composed, and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant in their day and gen- 
eration — that they were isolated by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of 
world. I want you to know that there are fourteen hundred millions of people in the 
world; and that with all the talk and work of the societies, only one hundred and 
twenty millions have got Bibles. I want you to understand that not one person in 
one hundred in this world ever read the Bible, and no two ever understood it alike 
who did read it, and that no one person probably ever understood it aright. I want 
you to understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated his brother — there 
have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the sword. I want you to know that the 
cross has been in partnership with the sword, and that the religion of Jesus Christ 
was established by murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the 
church carried the black flag. Then talk about the civilizing influence of this religion 

Now, I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christian's heaven. 
Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to heaven, 
caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. "If I can only get my 
little soul in!" I have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls 
make the most fuss about getting them saved. Here is what we are taught by the 
church to-day. We are taught by it that fathers and mothers, brothers and 
sisters can all be happy in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband 
can be happy there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of 
his life in hell. But they say, "We don't believe in fire. What we believe in now 
is remorse." What will you have remorse for? For the mean things you have 
done when you are in hell? Will you have any remorse for the mean things you 
have done when you are in heaven? Or will you be so good then that you won't 
care how you used to be? Don't you see what an infinitely mean belief that is. 
I tell you to-day that, no matter in what heaven you may be, no matter in what 
star you are spending the summer, if you meet another man whom you have 
wronged you will drop a little behind in the tune. And, no matter in what part of 
hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose nakedness you 
have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire will cool up a little. Accord- 
ing to this Christian doctrine, when you are in heaven you won't care how mean 
you were once. What must be the social condition of a gentleman in heaven who 
will admit that he never would have been there if he had not got scared? What 
must be the social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had 
not pitied him he ought to have been damned? Is it a compliment to an infinite 
God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned the minute He 
got him done, and that He will damn everybody He has not had a chance to 
make over? Is it possible that somebody else can be good for me, and that this 
doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor for the human soul? 

For instance, here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a splendid fel- 
low and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got about him splendid 
children, whom he has loved and cared for with all his heart. But he did not hap- 
pen to believe in this Bible; he did not believe in the Pentateuch. He did not be- 
lieve that because some children made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, 
God sent two bears and tore the little darlings to pieces. He had a tender heart, 




MISTAKES OF MOSES. 19 

and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody fragments of 
the children, and press them to their bosoms in a frenzy of grief ; he thought about 
their wails and lamentations, and could not believe that God was such an infinite 
monster. That was all he thought, but he went to hell. Then, there is another man 
who made a hell on earth for his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum, and 
his children were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants in the world. 
But just between the last sin and the last breath, this fellow got religion, and he 
never did another thing except to take his medicine. He never did a solitary human 
being a favor, and he died and went to heaven. Don't you think he would be as- 
tonished to see that other man in hell, and say to himself, "Is it possible that such 
a splendid character should bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at last has 
brought me next to God?" 

Or, let us put another case. You were once alone in the desert — no provisions, 
no water, no hope. Just when your life was at its lowest ebb, a man appeared, gave 
you water and food and brought you safely out. How you would bless that man. 
Time rolls on. You die and go to heaven; and one day you see through the black 
night of hell, the friend who saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool 
his parched lips. He cries to you "Remember what I did in the desert — give me 
to drink.'' How mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and 
be unable to relieve him. But that is the Christian heaven. We sit by the fire- 
side and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney — everybody happy, and 
the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window, and out on the doorstep is a 
mother with a child on her breast freezing. How happy it makes a fireside, that 
beautiful contrast. And we say "God is good," and there we sit, and she sits and 
moans, not one night but forever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives 
and children, everybody eating, happy and delighted, and Famine comes and pushes 
out its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust; how that 
would increase the appetite ! And yet that is the Christian heaven. Don't you 
see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart? And I would have 
every one who hears me, swear that he will never contribute another dollar to 
build another church, in which is taught such infamous lies. I want everyone of 
you to say that you never will, directly or indirectly, give a dollar to any man to 
preach that falsehood. It has done harm enough. It has covered the world with 
blood. It has filled the asylums for the insane. It has cast' a shadow in the heart, 
in the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman. I say let us rid the 
heavens of this monster, and write upon the dome "Liberty, love and law." 

No matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do exactly 
what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact thought in our brains. 
Rather than have this Christianity true, I would rather all the gods would destroy 
themselves this morning. I would rather the whole universe would go to nothing, 
if such a thing were possible, this instant. Rather than have the glittering dome 
of pleasure reared on the eternal abyss of pain, I would see the utter and eternal des- 
truction of this universe. I would rather see the shining fabric of our universe 
crumble to unmeaning chaos and take itself where oblivion broods and memory 
forgets. I would rather the blind Samson of some imprisoned force, released by 
thoughtless chance, should so rack and strain this world that man in stress 
and straint, in astonishment and fear, should suddenly fall back to savagery and 
barbarity. I would rather that this thrilled and thrilling globe, shorn of all life, 
should in its cycles rub the wheel, the parent star, on which the light should fall 



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20 MISTAKES OF MOSES. 

as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death, than to have this infamous doctrine 
of eternal punishment true; rather than have this infamous selfishness of a heaven 
for a few and a hell for the many established as the word of God ! 

One world at a time is my doctrine. Let us make some one happy here. 
Happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more decent actions 
you do, the larger your income will be. Let every man try to make his wife 
happy, his children happy. Let every man try to make every day a joy, and God 
cannot afford to damn such a man. I cannot help God; I cannot injure God. I 
can help people ; I can injure people. Consequently humanity is the only real 
religion. 

I cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines from Kobert 
Burns: 

"To make a happy fireside clime 

To weans and wife, 
That's the true pathos and sublime 
Of human life." 



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